Anguilla now generates 47% of its income from .ai domains (old.reddit.com)

Anguilla now earns nearly half of its government revenue from registrations and renewals of the .ai country-code top-level domain, a striking byproduct of the global AI boom. Rapid growth in startups, research projects, and branding around “AI” has driven strong demand for .ai names, fueling registrar sales, premium name auctions, and renewals that collectively have become a major economic engine for the island. That windfall underscores how digital assets—especially short, meaningful TLDs—can translate into real fiscal power for small jurisdictions. For the AI/ML community this has practical and strategic implications: .ai has become a coveted signal of credibility and product focus, but rising demand tightens available namespaces and inflates prices on the secondary market, complicating naming strategy for new projects. On the technical side, registries face challenges scaling DNS infrastructure, registrar APIs, and abuse mitigation (typosquatting, malicious redirects), while policy choices by Anguilla’s registry (pricing, WHOIS/registration rules, dispute mechanisms) could directly affect global teams’ costs and compliance. Startups should weigh branding benefits against long-term costs and regulatory risk, and watch for potential shifts in registry policy or investment of .ai revenues into local tech and internet governance that could further reshape the market.